View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by IUScholarWorks THE LEARNER’S INTUITION: HARNESSING THE POWER OF INTUITIONS DURING CREATIVE AND COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES Michael Paul Downton Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education, Indiana University, Bloomington April 2015 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee ____________________ Joyce Alexander, Ph.D. ____________________ Kylie Peppler, Ph. D. ____________________ Joshua Danish, Ph. D. ____________________ Katherine Strand, Ph. D August 6, 2014 ii Copyright © 2015 Michael P. Downton iii I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Charmaine, and son, Evan. Without their support, love and infinite patience during this whole process, I would not have been able to complete this project. Both of you mean the world to me and I love you more every day. Thank you for all your love and patience! To my new colleagues at St. John’s University for their understanding as I undertake both a new job and finishing this dissertation. I would especially like to thank Dr. Margot Ely, Professor Emerita at New York University who patiently read this document from front to back and provided such wonderful feedback and pushed my thinking into new directions. To Jeanne Bamberger who said to me during a conversation “…it all goes back to kids making things”. This, as well as her approach to music learning and understanding, have had such a profound effect on me. To Dr. Drew C. Appleby who taught me the words to live by. To my friends in the School of Education at Indiana University. Through all the projects, assignments, and classes, your feedback over the years has been instrumental in shaping my thinking. An extra special thanks to Asmalina “Lina” Saleh and Kate Shively who have supported me in this endeavor with their wonderful feedback and attentive ears. And last, but certainly not least, my research committee. To Dr. Joyce Alexander who has kept me grounded and has pushed me when times looked their most bleak. To Dr. Katy Strand who iv has provided such wonderful feedback on how to engage both a learning sciences and music education audience. To Dr. Joshua Danish who has the unbelievable talent of asking the right questions to produce the most understanding and I only hope I can engage my students in the way that you have me throughout the years. And finally, to Dr. Kylie Peppler who has shown me unwavering support by not only allowing me to pursue my passion in music but exposing my work and ideas to major contributors in the field. We started this journey at the same time with you being a new faculty member and me being your first student. You have pushed, pushed again, pushed further, and still push and for that, it has made me a better scholar, academic, and professional. No words can express my gratitude. v Michael P. Downton THE LEARNER’S INTUITION: HARNESSING THE POWER OF INTUITIONS DURING CREATIVE AND COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES Intuitions have received little attention in learning and education largely due to the difficulty in defining what intuitions are and their potential benefit (or detriment) to learning. The research on intuitions has been encouraging, yet the methods employed to study these intuitions often involve learners—some with considerable background and/or prior domain knowledge—expressing their thinking, a priori, about some phenomena they have encountered. If, however, intuitions help individuals make sense of unfamiliar and new phenomena encountered in the world, then steps should be taken to encourage learners to use their intuitions as they encounter these phenomena. The findings in this dissertation suggest that even over small amounts of time, young children can think and produce materials that are beyond what was initially thought to be developmentally appropriate. Further still, engaging young learners in a discourse that values intuitions is important and activities grounded in practices that encourage children to be actively involved in making a tangible artifact helps in the construction of knowledge. Furthermore, curricular designs grounded in a constructionist theory of learning and teaching and mediated by technology may be advantageous for music educators because they encourage students to engage in what musicians do (e.g., create music). vi TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................x List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. xi Chapter One: Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Chapter Two: Why ask why? Questions to elicit reasoned intuitive responses ............................7 Abstract ................................................................................................................................7 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................8 Background ........................................................................................................................10 Inquiry, Intuitions, and Intuitive Responses: A Pedagogical Framework .............10 Responses and the structural musical ladder .............................................14 Guiding Constructionist Theory: A Theory of Learning and Teaching ...............16 Encouraging Intuitions in a Constructionist Environment.....................................17 Why Music Composition? .....................................................................................18 Method ...............................................................................................................................19 Overview ................................................................................................................19 Setting and Participants..........................................................................................20 The Role of the Practitioner Researcher ................................................................22 Impromptu as a toll for music composition and intuition development ................23 Overview of the Curriculum ..................................................................................25 Typical Classroom Interactions .............................................................................28 Data Sources and Analytical Techniques ..............................................................32 Findings..............................................................................................................................36 RQ 1 – What Role does the Practitioner Have in Scaffolding Students’ Intuitive Explanations? ............................................................................................36 RQ 2 – What Types of Questions Elicit Engagement Within the Structural Musical Ladder?........................................................................................38 Limitations of the Current Study .......................................................................................42 Discussion ..........................................................................................................................43 Chapter Three: The Use of Intuitive Explanations to Guide Music Making, Thinking, and vii Learning ..............................................................................................................46 Abstract ..............................................................................................................................46 Introduction ........................................................................................................................48 Background ........................................................................................................................51 Constructionist Learning Theory ...........................................................................51 The Importance of Intuitions .....................................................................52 Foundations of intuitions ...............................................................55 Sense of Mechanism and P-Prims: Contemporary Views of Intuitions .......................................................................................57 Musical intuitions...........................................................................58 Reflection-In-Action ..........................................................................................................60 Methodology ......................................................................................................................62 Overview ................................................................................................................62 Setting and Participants..........................................................................................63 The Tool and Curriculum: Impromptu .................................................................64 The Practitioner/Researcher ...................................................................................67 Daily Activity – Reflection-in-Action